Baralier ([info]baralier) wrote,
@ 2006-04-21 12:05:00
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Current mood: WTF?
Entry tags:copyright & censorship

Changing channels is a privilage!
WTF?

Royal Philips Electronics have lodged a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it.

Philips acknowledged, however, that the anti-channel changing technology might not sit well with consumers.
No shit Sherlock!

This may then pave the way for the "option" of paying additional fees not to see the ads. This ranks up there with the RIAA comments that Fair Use is not a "right" but a form of licence agreement that they may be entitled to revoke at some later date.

I just wish I had been able to get a ticket to hear Cory Doctorow earlier in the week.


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[info]spider_kitten
2006-04-21 02:20 am UTC (link)
i wish they would invent something that allowed other drivers to jam the mobile phones of the idiots driving around them on theor phones

now that would be useful

(Reply to this)


[info]strang_er
2006-04-21 02:48 am UTC (link)
Easily solved, as long as they don't stop tvs having an 'off' mode.

Perhaps the broadcasters would do better investing in an anti channel-changing measure known as 'quality programming content'. Radical idea, maybe, but so crazy it could be worth a try.

(Reply to this)


[info]bar_bar_ella
2006-04-21 02:55 am UTC (link)

So... if you're watching soomit and suddenly realise That Really Important Show You Really Really Wanted To Watch has just started on the other channel, you won't be able to change your own fucking telly over until the ad-break finishes?

Um. Fuck that. :)

No, actually - fuck that with inhumanly large things with spikes on.

(Reply to this)


[info]archmage
2006-04-21 04:19 am UTC (link)
And once again, I'm glad I don't watch TV.

(Reply to this)


[info]jujulilianan
2006-04-21 04:22 am UTC (link)
yeah. I heard about that the other day.

funny stuff.

It looks more like a speculative patent than anything else, though.

Anyone selling TVs with this technology even capable of being enabled on them would have a HELL of a time selling them. And I don't see how legislation would be passed to mandate it.

(Reply to this)


[info]damien_wise
2006-04-21 05:06 pm UTC (link)
Philips acknowledged, however, that the anti-channel changing technology might not sit well with consumers and suggested in its patent filing that consumers be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee.

They'll hold your TV to ransom, in other words.
Wonderful.

I heard that they'd sue anyone who develops work-around technology to let people skip their un-skippable ads (in much the same way as people who've written software that lets you make a back-up of copy-protected software are getting targeted by record-labels).

(Reply to this)


[info]lucy_anne
2006-04-23 06:59 pm UTC (link)
Paul Holmes, publisher of the Holmes Report, had a very interesting take on the new techology on his blog.

Somewhat overstating the case, but he's not wrong.

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